High foot farce at Tynecastle, no Kyogo penalty at Celtic Park | OneFootball

The Scottish FA is “finally seeing sense” on handball rules, says Bobby Madden. The comment comes after controversy in the opening weekend of the Scottish Premiership, including a Kyogo penalty incident that went unchecked.

In a post made to his Instagram story, he said: “UEFA have finally seen sense and ‘relaxed’ the handball criteria. SFA have to follow suit and apply new criteria. Unfortunately, that appears to be secret and we will have to wait for their transparent press release this week to find out if this is a penalty or not.”

Referencing the Celtic incident, he added: “For the avoidance of doubt, if VAR thought this was a foul, there would be an on-field review. If it was offside the image would be shown and play would be restarted with the offside. You never know, we may be shown a still of the offside in 30 minutes.”

On the opening day of the Scottish Premiership, Hearts were on the end of a controversial decision where the ball appeared to hit the hand of theRangers defender Connor Barron inside of the box.

Referee Nick Walsh didn’t give a penalty, and VAR didn’t see the need to go back and take a second look.

The following day in the Dundee derby, there was a similar decision made where Dundee United felt they were robbed of a penalty. Flag day at Celtic Park also wasn’t without controversy as Kyogo was impeded by the Kilmarnock goalkeeper, but again, no penalty was given.

The Premiership was rife with controversy last season, but the main criticism was the lack of consistency. Although some decisions this season have been labelled “terrible” by supporters, others are all for looser rules, as long as referees stick to it over the course of 38 games.

The handball change will be most welcome for all supporters so long as it is consistent. The incident with Kyogo though was a blatant foul and a huge error by VAR to dismiss it. Had the game been tight then this would have been a huge controversy for Willie Collum on his first weekend in charge of Scottish refereeing.

And if there has been guidance on the handball rule from UEFA, has there also been something similar for the high foot that saw Yang sent off at Tynecastle back in March. Remember Celtic appealed the red card and that was thrown out by the three former referees on the appeals panel, so four referees thought it was a valid red card.

This happened at Tynecastle on Saturday and there wasn’t even a yellow card issued. Maybe Bobby Madden or better still Willie Collum will explain.

We’ll have to see how decisions go for the rest of the season but there is mixed opinion over if the relaxed rules are good for the game…and to find out if they are being relaxed for all clubs.

Jessica Elliott

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